The present invention disclosed herein relates to a semiconductor optical amplifier and an optical signal processing method using the same, and more particularly, to a semiconductor optical amplifier using a cross gain modulation and an optical signal processing method using the same.
As high speed internet and diverse multimedia services are introduced lately, Fiber To The Home (FTTH) technology for connecting a telephone station to a home through an optical fiber has been actively developed in order to provide a large amount of information to a user. To commercially use this technology, it is necessary to transmit a large amount of information and achieve a low cost for realizing it.
In general, because a Passive Optical Network (PON) is based on a passive device, it is advantageous in an aspect of network maintenance and management. Furthermore, since a large number of subscribers share an optical fiber in the PON, it is economical. Especially, according to a Wavelength Division Multiplexed-Passive Optical Network (WDM-PON), since respectively different wavelengths are allocated to each subscriber, its security and expandability are excellent.
However, according to the WDM-PON, a very expensive optical source such as Distributed Feedback Laser Diode (DFB-LD) is required for each subscriber to use respectively different wavelengths. Furthermore, to achieve a rapid troubleshooting and effective wavelength management, a provider of the WDM-PON preliminarily prepares optical sources of a specific wavelength allocated to each subscriber. That is, if a wavelength dependable optical source is used, a price competitive WDM-PON may be difficult to realize.
Accordingly, researches for using a low-cost wavelength independent optical source such as a reflective semiconductor optical amplifier as an optical source of an Optical Network Terminal (ONT) in the WDM-PON have been actively progressed.